Something Better
by Ballycastle-Bat
Summary: Three times when Lisa Snart had her unhealthy comping skills normalised, and one where she learns there are other options.


[Pairings: Platonic Pairings of Lisa Snart, Leonard Snart and Mick Rory as well as Lisa Snart and Team Flash Characters: Lisa Snart, Barry Allen, Cisco Ramon, Caitlin Snow, Mick Rory

Format: The first in a series of self-harmed themed stories.

Warnings: This fic has graphic depections of self harm, murder, child abuse, as well as brief mentions of implied child prostitution that doesn't actually happen.

Spoilers/Timeline: Sort of has spoillers for s2e3 "A Family of Rogues"

Author's Notes: Once again, this fic has self harm themes, please read at your own discretion. This was writen in a 3 1 time format for Bad Things Happen Bingo on AO3 and Tumblr. Prompt was "Burns". I don't claim to be an expert on self harm but I did struggle with it from age 12-22. Please don't be gross about self harm in the comments, no one is forcing you to read this.]

1.

The hour was late and Mick settled down in his chair with a grunt. They had been on the run with Snart's sister. Who was barely ten at the time. They took her right out of Snart's old house. They weren't worried about getting caught, they couldn't even be sure that his old man would notice his second favourite punching bag was missing.

It was late and the warehouse had a heavy draft. The had given most of their blankets to the kid, who had gone to sleep beside her brother hours ago. He couldn't sleep. Too many thoughts in his head. Mick never said much but the wheels in his head were always turning. He wanted quiet. He wanted his mind to stop . He flicked open his lighter and brought the flame to lick at his forearm. His eyes fixated on the flesh as it burnt under the kiss of the flame.

"Mick!" Lisa whined and Mick quickly shut the lighter, when her small hands touched his wrist. "Doesn't that hurt?"

"Go back to bed, kid."

"You can't hurt yourself, Micky!"

Mick grunted. "It's to make my head shut up. I said go to bed, Snart doesn't want you awake."

"But I'm cold, Micky!" Mick sighed and put the lighter away, shoving it into his pocket and moved down to the pile of blankets they had set down on the floor of the cold warehouse. They weren't the only one's crashing there, but they were the only ones in that section, so they were mostly alone.

"Fine." he opened his big coat and let the child curl up with him. He wrapped her up and held her close to his warmth. She fell asleep soon after, and when Leonard returned he had joined them.

2.

Eleven year old Lisa Snart had learned long ago not to argue with the way Mick held a lighter to himself, allowing the flames to lick at his scarred skin. So she didn't say anything as he did this during their meeting. It had become more than normal to her.

"You ready to do your job, kid?" Another member of their little gang had asked.

"I know how to be a distraction!" She scoffed, crossing her arms. "I just have to look sad and people will feel bad for me while you steal stuff." She stuck her tongue out at the other member.

However, Lisa had messed up her one job. The only one she was given, and while the other member was tearing into her he made a grave mistake: He put his hands on Lisa.

He grabbed her by her hair and yanked her up. "You stupid little bitch-"

A gun went off, and the man fell to the floor, bleeding from his chest. Standing over him was Leonard Snart. He glanced briefly at the man bleeding out on the floor. "No one touches my sister." his tone was too cool, too unphased by what was happening. Unaffected by murdering someone so easily.

Lisa stared at the man on the ground, watching his blood spill onto the concrete. She felt sick, she felt scared . The only thing she knew to do was to retreat further into the hideout. Her thoughts were too damn loud though, her brother had murdered someone right in front of her face. She noticed now that the man's blood was splattered on her face.

She desperately needed to quiet her mind, so she settled for the only way she knew how. The way she had learned from Mick. She grabbed a lighter from nearby and began to run the flame over a nail she found on the floor. Waiting until it grew hot before pressing it hard into her skin to brand herself. It worked, her brain shut up, so strongly focused on the pain that it was hard to think of anything else.

3.

Fifteen year old Lisa had no response to what was happening. Mick was once again turning a flame on himself, it wasn't something she never so much as glanced at anymore. They had just shoved out a member of their crew after they crudely suggested Lisa be put to other uses to make them some cash. Lisa was shocked that her brother had let him live, but was glad to have him gone otherwise. He had always been a little too creepy with her.

It was during their next heist that things really got intense, and it had all piled up. So of course, Lisa turned to her own lighter, licking the flames over the underneath of her forearm until the smell of burning flesh filled the air. She'd graduated from heating metal to use and had decided to get what she needed straight from the flame like Mick did. It was faster that way.

1.

Caitlin:

Lisa had only been with team Flash for a few hours. They were trying to figure out how to get the bomb out of her neck. They were thrown by how a man could do something like this to his own child, but after Cisco heard more morbid details of her past, he was a little less shocked but all the more disgusted.

Caitlin had been the first to notice the scars when she looked her over, but hadn't asked anything beyond how fresh the marks were. She didn't want to risk Lisa getting defensive while she had a bomb on her neck. "I just need to know how to work around them." Caitlin clarified.

Lisa looked up at Caitlin with a confused expression. "They're a couple weeks old. I put them in after a fight with Mick." She wasn't sure why Caitlin was dancing around the situation.

"Thank you for being open with me." Caitlin continued to work around her like normal.

Cisco:

Lisa seemed on edge, which was understandable given the situation. What surprise Cisco was her showing that to them. He was certain this experience had brought them closer, in what way he wasn't sure yet. Though, he found himself happy to help her. He knew she needed someone to be there for her, so he had listened, even though they did not have a very good history. He hadn't a clue why she opened up to him of all people, but he wouldn't turn her away. Both because he didn't want to and because that wouldn't be the right thing to do.

However, when she asked to be alone, he respected it, having no idea why she'd wanted that. So he told her Barry's office would be empty for a few more hours if she wanted to cool off in there.

Barry:

Shortly after the bomb was removed from Lisa's neck and Lewis Snart was dead, Barry returned back to the lab. However, what he found was the opposite of what he'd hopped to see. Lisa Snart was hiding out in his office. She sat at the desk, probably assuming the office was unused. In her hand was her trusty lighter, the same one she'd has by side since she was thirteen.

Barry approached her, one hand gently pushed the hand with the lighter away from her arm. "Hey, what's going on?"

Lisa glanced up at him, confusion clear on her face. "It was a long day, Flash. I had a bomb in my neck."

"Okay … let's put that away though." He closed the lid of the lighter. "Maybe we can go talk to Caitlin?"

She blinked at him. "Why are both of you being so weird about this? Don't you do it?"

Barry stared at her for a second. "Do what? That? I've never done that." He tried not to be judgmental, but this wasn't something he'd ever seen before, except in the movies. "Do you want to talk to Caitlin? I'm sure she can connect you with someone … she found someone for me." Barry offered weakly, not sure how to approach this. However, he knew that he needed to get her medical attention. "Will you let Caitlin have a look at it at least?"

"Sure." She said flatly, not entirely sure why he was making a big deal out of this.

So Barry brought her downstairs to Caitlin. There wasn't much Caitlin could do for first degree burns, but she did what she could. She was starting to ask her more in depth questions. When she started, why she felt like she needed to, other things.

Lisa was growing a little less open with Caitlin as the talk went on. Caitlin could feel her shutting down so she pulled back slightly. "Well, that's okay." She tried to be comforting in some way. "You can always talk to me and Cisco."

"How is talking about it going to help?" Lisa demanded. "This is stupid."

Caitlin chimed in again. "You could try taking some deep breaths and riding out the emotion that's making you want to hurt yourself."

Lisa stared at them for a second, her gaze calculating. "Do you … really think this is bad?" she seemed confused and burdened. Team Flash was beginning to wonder how long she'd resorted to this.

"Lisa, how long have you been doing this?" Barry tried to broach that question again.

"You didn't answer my question, Flash." She was a bit defensive now.

Barry sighed and stuffed his hands into his pockets as he tried to find a way to phrase his thoughts. "I don't think it's bad … I think you were doing what you knew how to do; but you shouldn't do that. You deserve better options."

Lisa looked at Cisco, whom she seemed to trust most right now. "Why are you acting like there's something wrong with me?"

"We just want you to be safe." It was Caitlin who spoke. "We just spent all day getting a bomb out of your neck we care about you, and it's concerning to find you hurting yourself."

She looked at Cisco. "So, what? You're mad at me?"

"We aren't mad at you." Cisco tried to assure her, unsure of what he could say.

The room was silent for a few moments before Barry started talking again. "Look, if your brother was going to rob a house, but there was a house down the block that had better stuff to steal … would you just let him go to the house with no loot?"

Lisa was just plain annoyed now. "I would tell him to go to the house with more stuff, that's a stupid question."

"That's kind of what we're trying to do here."

Cisco butt in. "Barry's right, that's all we're trying to do. We're trying to give you a better option. It doesn't mean we think there's something wrong with you … we just want to give you a better option."

"There are a lot of better options," Caitlin added. "If you want, we can sit down for a bit and talk about them."

Lisa left after that. She needed time to sort out her head. With Len out from under Lewis's thumb and the bomb out of her neck she didn't have anything else to worry about. Except for their reactions. This had been a part of her since she was a child, she didn't know any different. Or at least, she couldn't remember a time when she did.

Caitlin came home to her apartment a few weeks later, she'd grown used to living alone so she shut the door behind her, and had a bit of a start when she saw Lisa sitting on the sofa.

She looked up at Caitlin and it was clear she'd been crying. "Lisa!" Caitlin said in surprise, she crossed the room. "Are you alright?"

Lisa sniffed and wiped her face. "I'd like to talk about those better options now, if that's okay?"

Caitlin nodded. "Of course. Do you like tea? I can make some green tea and we can talk." when Lisa simply nodded in response, Caitlin went to put the kettle on the stove. She hoped the conversation would go better than last time, because she really did want Lisa to tale care of herself.


End file.
